After Elaini Koster's article "Someone's Killing Cats on Caroline Street" appeared in KWTN last Friday, June 9, I stopped into Fausto's Food Palace on Fleming Street.
Susan Weekley had read the article and expressed her dismay about the poisoned felines. She also gave me an extra tip that I would like to share with you.
Susan said that to keep cats from foraging through her garbage cans, she sprinkles tabasco sauce on the lids. Once a cat gets that hot stuff on its paws or fur, it will clean it off and get a hot surprise. She said it works really well.
I told that to my neighbors, Lake and Tom, who have a tom cat spraying their outdoor furniture at night. Spraying water on cats doesn't work when you're not around to spray them. So they are going to try Susan's tobasco sauce trick and spread it under their fence where cats get in. Hopefully, it will work like it does for Susan.
Thanks for the tip!
Suzanne Walczak has definitely found her Prince. He's a five-year-old Dalmation, and she calls him her "miracle dog."
Suzanne's good friend introduced them. Last year, her friend found the deathly ill dog, and inspired Suzanne and some other friends to raise money to pay vet bills for Prince, who was suffering from a kidney ailment. "But Prince was going down for the last time," said Suzanne.
"The veternarian had given him some drugs so he could be catharized," said Wolchak, "but she didn't hold out much hope for Prince. As a matter of fact," she continued, "the vet was already preparing the shot that would euthanize him, when," she said, "incredibly, Prince struggled to his feet, walked over to the exam table, lifted his leg, and peed! We couldn't believe that his kidneys started working again!"
Because no one could take him at the time, Prince went home with Suzanne to recouperate.
But Prince's struggles with illness weren't over. "He had also been tested positive for heartworm," said Suzanne.
A few weeks later she took Prince back to the vet's to start his heartworm treatments.
"I asked the veternarian to test him again," said Suzanne. "For some reason I just had this feeling." So he was tested again for heartworm and this time the test came back negative. "Prince hasn't had a sick day since," Suzanne said, "and he's been with me for over a year."
Prince can be found hanging out with Suzanne at her shop, the City Zoo, on Duval Street. "He's my shadow," says Suzanne. "And he gives us so much love.
"I remember when I was a kid, we would ask my mom, `Why do you treat the dog better than us?'"Suzanne said. "Mom would say, `You wanna know why? Because he never talks back and he loves me no matter what!'
"That's the way I feel about Prince!"
What would Suzanne tell us about adopting a pet? "That animals need us— they can't survive well on their own. They're like children who never grow up," she said. "And they give so much love back to us, much more than we could ever give, because it's unconditional."
She added, "We domesticated our animals. We are responsible for them."
When Miami Herald Reporter Ozzie Osborne came by the Chicken Store May 23, he seemed flustered. "You've got to help me out," he said. "I need a picture and a story. Now they want us to write six stories a week instead of four, and I don't have anything for tomorrow."
He snapped pictures of me holding Little Jerry, one of Mario Cervantes' miniature banties. He was fumbling with the digital camera, seemed unfamiliar with it. Then he wanted to take notes. He didn't have a pen or paper, so I gave him paper, a clipboard and pen. He asked me several questions twice. Bumbling, distracted Ozzie-- it was his personal style, wasn't it? Sort of like Colombo. Put you at ease, made you talk. This time, when he left, he took my pen and clipboard with him. I just smiled and shook my head. "Ozzie of The Herald! He's a Key West character."
I was happy to supply him a pen and clipboard. With Ozzie, you always got positive press. Almost alone among the journalists in this town, he avoided controversy and scandal. When he interviewed you, you knew he would stress your good side. His photo of me dominated the Keys page of the Miami Herald on May 24. Famous for a day as the Chicken Lady of Key West. How delicious!
Days later, Ozzie stopped by the store. I was out. He chatted for about 15 minutes with Charles Brown, my manager. He had known Charles since last year when he interviewed him as director of the Animal Shelter. This time Ozzie left us a painting he had made. He told Charles, "I know you people only do chickens, but I would like you to have it anyway."
Charles was puzzled, but accepted graciously.
The painting is a stylized close-up of a cat's face, in black, white and bright lime yellow. The face is built in bilaterally symmetrical geometric forms. It has a child-like, curiously endearing, hopeful, eager-to-please quality about it. Ozzie of The Herald was like that too— seeking to see the simpler world, the happy balance.
We had the painting near the register, uncertain what to do with it, but flattered he would want us to have it.
I got to see Ozzie one more time, and to thank him for his picture.
Then, on Saturday, June 3, Ozzie took his own life. We heard that he had quit his job the previous day. "Ozzie of The Herald" had been his identity. He was no longer "Of The Herald," and he was no longer of the world. I read that he had also left a painting of a cat to his close friends Bill and Leslie Grosscup.
On Friday, Key West Kritter Patrol President CeCe Crane had received a letter from him. In it, he asked her to take care of his cat, Chris. "I have problems-- who hasn't," he wrote apologetically to CeCe. "I don't know how long I will be gone." He described his cat as "tame and loving. I think the world of him. He sleeps in bed with me two or three nights a week. GOD BLESS."
He told CeCe where she would find him, and left the cat well supplied with food and water. He loved cats and provided for his pet, to the end-- and beyond. There was money in the envelope.
CeCe tried to reach Ozzie but no one answered the phone. WhenCeCe and Gerry Gleisner read of his death in the papers they immediately went to Ozzie's home and recovered the cat. "He was waiting for us right where Ozzie said he would be," CeCe said.
They found him a permanent home with Tony Minore, at the William Anthony guest house on Caroline St. "It's eerie," Ce Ce says Tony told her. "Chris is the carbon copy of a cat I lost called Mikey."
Rest in Peace, Ozzie, friend of Key West, friend of the felines! All of your cats are home now.